Icarus
by Magery
Summary: <html><head></head>Eren and Annie are a natural disaster; terrifying, devastating, as inevitable as death and all the more beautiful for it. Theirs is a love like Icarus - it might all end in tears and screaming, but oh, the flight. [Modern!Police!AU]</html>
1. Tears and Screaming

Her phone rings. It's Eren's ringtone—Paralyzer by Finger Eleven—and so Annie answers immediately; he usually doesn't call this early (he would have barely gotten off his patrol by now), but Eren has always had issues with predictability.

"Eren?" she asks, leaning against the kitchen counter.

A pause.

"Hey, Annie. Where are you?" His voice is a little harsher than normal; there's a rawness to it that only comes out when he's angry.

"At home," she says. "What's up with you?"

Another pause. When he speaks again, he's much more collected.

"Sorry. Jean was more of a dick than normal today; I didn't mean to take it out on you. Are you doing anything tonight?"

"Not really," she shrugs, even though he can't see it. "Why? And what'd he do?"

"Would you like to come over?"

She frowns. "Isn't Mikasa there?"

"No, not tonight. She's with Levi. Jean caught them making out on Levi's desk when he went in to deliver a case file. He wouldn't shut up about it all day; the idiot's practically inconsolable."

Annie laughs. "Are you serious?"

"I wish I wasn't," he says; he seems to laugh almost despite himself, cutting it off instantly. "So? You coming over?"

"Got nothing better to do." Her smile bleeds into her voice. "I'll see you soon."

She hangs up.

* * *

><p>About half an hour later, Annie arrives at the front door of Eren's apartment block. His flat might be less than ten minutes away from hers, but even though she rarely acknowledges it, Annie is still a woman, and she's not going to visit her boyfriend looking like she just got home from work. She presses the buzzer for Unit Five, and a few seconds later the door clicks unlocked; opening and shutting it behind her, she moves through the short hallway leading to the stairs, climbing the first flight. Reaching Eren's door, she makes to turn the doorknob and, finding it unlocked, pushes the wooden frame forward.<p>

She's only taken one step into the flat when her whole world shatters. Because Eren is sitting on the couch, facing her, madness in his eyes and a gun levelled at her chest. The pistol is sleek, built to kill and kill well. A vague part of her mind thinks it resembles her.

"Lock the door." His voice is harsh and cruel, and it punches through her like a bullet.

"Eren..." The name slips out before she can control herself.

"Lock. The. DOOR."

And so she does, slowly and carefully. Eren gestures with the gun toward the loveseat opposite the couch, and Annie obeys the unspoken demand and sits down. In many ways, she's glad; her whole body is shaking, and she's not sure how much longer she could keep her feet. She might have been expecting this moment ever since they kissed for the second time, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

"I talked to Armin today," and of course it was Armin, he of the kind eyes and quicksilver mind—the nicest and most dangerous man you're ever likely to meet—who found her out, "and you know what he said, Annie? He said you were a member of the Titans. He said you were one of their moles in the police force. He said you were a _traitor_."

"And you believed him? Just like that?" Annie's not sure what's worse: the fact she bothered to ask, or the fact there's a part of her that hopes against hope that the answer is no.

"No. Fuck you. You don't get to ask questions like that, _Annie_. If that's even your fucking _name_."

Even though his voice wavers, the gun never does.

"Operation Shiganshina, Operation Trost, Marco, Franz, Mina... how could you? How could you do that to us? To _me_? I fucking _loved_ you, and all the while you've been working for the fucking bastards who killed_ my mother_."

Annie refuses to believe the heat in the corners of her eyes is a prelude to tears, because she is a Leonhardt and it will take more than a breaking heart to break _her_. She's always been good at lying to herself. It's the first time Eren's ever admitted out loud that he loves her, and even though she's never needed the confirmation, to receive it like _this_...

She looks up, because Eren deserves to see her face—because she might be breaking but she will not bow—and it's then she sees it in his eyes. Hope. It's hidden behind a maelstrom of rage and pain, behind a cracked, broken-glass-and-bleeding mirror of his usual intensity, but it's there. Even though Armin probably spent an hour convincing him of her guilt, there's a part of Eren that doesn't _want_ to believe. He's always seen the 'good' in her, even when she knows it doesn't exist.

And Annie knows she could use this. She could lie, could twist the truth and take advantage of every aspect of Eren that makes him _Eren_, because he loves the way he hates: with all-consuming passion. Like wildfire.

But she won't. Annie's sick of living a lie—a sickness like poison, churning in her gut every time he looks at her with softness in his eyes—and if there's a part of her that can't bear to see him in pain, well, maybe that's making itself known, too.

Instead, she is silent beneath the fury of his gaze; the lonely beach in those final few moments before the tsunami hits. She's not quite crying, but something in her thinks she should be.

"Answer me!" Eren snarls, his voice—raw, desperate _agony—_hooking into her like a claw and raking her apart from the inside. "For fuck's sake, Annie, I just want to know _why_!"

"I'm sorry, Eren," Annie says, the words leaking from her mouth like blood. "I never meant to hurt you."

They're platitudes, and useless ones at that, but she's not lying. She just doesn't know what else to say.

Silence falls.

"Yeah, and I'll bet you never meant for me to find out either." There is no fire in his tone, any more. Only ash.

When Annie next speaks—seconds, minutes, or hours later, she's not really sure—her voice is smooth, like ice on the surface of a lake. Even she's not sure how deep the fault-lines go. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I should arrest you." There is no hesitation. "No. I should _kill_ you. Prison would be too kind after what you've done."

Then he lowers the gun, slumping backward the way men do when their throats are cut. Annie's mind has always been a little morbid.

"But I won't. I can't. I don't _want_ to. I love you even when it hurts. Even when I'd give anything to just look at you and feel _nothing_. Good job, Annie. Did you do it for the irony? Some drunken game between you and your Titan buddies? 'I dare you to make one of them love you!'. Well, congra—"

"Fuck _you_, Eren."

Eren's expression is almost comical. While he's always been a fan of profanity—he swears like a fire spitting sparks—Annie rarely, if ever, curses out loud. She's usually far too much in control for that.

"You know what my father told me, just before I left for the Academy? 'Treat the whole world as your enemy.' If I'd been doing my _job_, I never would have come anywhere near you. I was never supposed to get close to _anybody._ You're not a joke, Eren. _We're_ not a joke."

"Well it sure fucking feels like it," he says, but his voice is missing an edge, no longer as sharply vicious as lightning.

"Have you ever known me for my sense of humour?" The conversation is almost banal; but, then again, it's not the words that matter. They never really have, when it comes to the two of them.

Eren barks a laugh, harsh like a gunshot, before running a hand through his hair. "What the fuck are we doing, Annie? You're everything I've hate, yet here we are."

"I never know what I'm doing when it comes to you," she says, and maybe she's starting to sound like she belongs in some shitty romance novel, but clichés only become clichés because they're true.

He smiles; it's not quite bitter, in the way manslaughter is not quite murder. "Where do we go from here?"

"Where even _is_ here?"

"I wish I fucking knew."

It is in that moment that she understands what she must do. Annie stands up, all raw grace and provocative arrogance; though his eyes track her, he makes no move toward his gun. "Fight me."

"_What_?" Eren jerks to his feet, probably before he realises he's even moving.

"You know you want to," she says, voice curling into a taunt. It's stupid and reckless and so very _Eren_ of her, but he's always dealt with—always understood—his problems through violence, and Annie can't think of anything else. "Come on. Attack me. I'm just a fragile little girl; don't you want to see how easily the traitor breaks?"

"Annie." He growls her name like it's something dark and dangerous. "Cut this shit out."

"_Make me._"

He lunges toward her, and her whole world narrows to the lines of his body. One punch, two, three; Eren's abandoned technique and style and finesse—everything he ever learned from her—for simply _swinging_. It's childishly simple to slide between them and take out his legs with a sweeping kick; he falls, and she falls with him, pinning him to the ground with her legs around his waist and an elbow on his throat. She's left his arms free, but for a moment they just sit there in silence, gazes locked. Then Eren's eyes narrow and her world _twists_; Annie slams into the carpet on her back, so hard the impact drives the breath from her body.

Eren looms over her, hair falling over his eyes, locking her body to the floor with every inch of his own. Time stretches out like she's trapped on the edge of a black hole, until something shifts, and before she can react Eren's mouth is covering her own. The kiss is hard and biting; Eren's almost consuming her, but she plunges into it regardless, fighting him for control even as she tastes the blood on her lips. There aren't many things that make Annie feel alive. This is one of them.

Her clothes are not so much slipped off as torn from her body - though, of course, she gives as good as she gets. Eren is normally a considerate lover; this time, he sinks into her without a word of warning, and her first, sharp gasp isn't entirely from pleasure. The sex is angry, rough, and desperate, but Annie doesn't particularly care. This wasn't about her.

They lie there in silence, after, and she wishes she knew what was going on inside his head. Then, he lifts it, and stares into her eyes as if they conceal all the mysteries of the multiverse. Perhaps they do.

When Eren kisses her the second time, he's as close to gentle as he ever gets.

Eventually—in snatches, and not always with words—they talk for hours. He's the first person to ever learn of her childhood. It's almost cathartic, like scouring her soul with acid. Annie's no fool; Eren hasn't forgiven her, and he certainly doesn't trust her. He just knows what she once denied for so many years. The two of them are a natural disaster; terrifying, devastating, as inevitable as death and all the more beautiful for it.

Theirs is a love like Icarus - it might all end in tears and screaming, but oh, the _flight_.

When they fall asleep—in Eren's bed—neither of them are particularly sure of where they will be in morning's light.

* * *

><p>The apartment's phone rings, waking Annie from her slumber; Eren is seemingly still asleep next to her, and so she rolls blearily out of bed, taking a shirt out of his closet and tossing it on. She pads across the floor, and, when she reaches the phone—the one connected to the buzzer—she picks it up it; upon hearing the voice, she presses the necessary button to grant entry and hangs up.<p>

Maybe a minute later, there's a knock at the door; she walks over and pulls it open.

"Hello, Armin."

"Annie," he returns, apparently unsurprised. She steps back wordlessly and allows him entry, his eyes no doubt noticing the gun resting on the couch alongside the clothes strewn all across the floor. Annie walks over to the couch and sits down, almost crossing her legs before remembering she's only wearing a shirt. Armin takes the loveseat, and waits in silence. He's always been good at that; there's a kindness about Armin, something that draws everyone to him like a priest in their confessional. Even Annie has been tempted, at times.

Now, she gives in.

"What do you want?" She's not sure if Armin notices the not-quite-defeat in her tone; there are precious few who would know her well enough to pick it. One of them is asleep in the next room.

"What do _you_ want?"

"For you to stop playing games," Annie snaps; she's still tired, still reeling from night before, and her voice is harsh and jagged like a broken blade. "We both know why you're here."

Armin nods. "You're a good person, Annie. Eren wouldn't love you if you weren't. And you're in a unique situation - you're the first mole we've ever found. That leaves certain... options available to you. Options I'm sure you've probably considered."

"How many others know?" She's never been one for making friends, but there are a few of Eren's whose company she can tolerate.

"Eren was the first person I told once I was sure."

She's just about to speak when her skin shivers, and she just _knows_ Eren watching her. He's never been subtle, and especially not when it comes to her - even in public, even before they were ever together, his eyes would slide over her body, kissing her in every way he couldn't. In every _place_ he couldn't. It's been a long time since Annie was able to convince herself that she didn't enjoy it.

But he doesn't move closer. The silence stretches out, and, if she was feeling dramatic, she'd say it felt like the world was stretching with it - her fate poised between contradictions, and her soul unsure whether the right move was to fight, or to fall.

Eventually, she makes a decision.

"What do you want me to do?"

Annie pretends she can't feel Eren's smile.

* * *

><p><strong>It is with this, my friends, that I bring you an apology. What you read here was not, originally, a one-shot. Instead, it was the ending of a much longer fic - of which I have written 6,200 words. Unfortunately, as much as I want to, I cannot finish that fic. I've already written all the interesting scenes for it (the ending scene you read here was what I wrote <em>first<em>), and, though I have tried for months, the other, less-dramatic-but-equally-necessary scenes just _will not form_. **

**I may end up posting those other scenes, too, under different titles (the whole story itself was meant to be named Icarus, not just this scene). It depends on whether or not I judge them to actually make sense as stand-alone pieces. We shall see. **

**Regardless, I am sorry - I wish it did not have to be this way. **

**On a lighter note, thanks for reading - here's hoping you liked it! **


	2. Rage and Resolve

Meal times at the Academy are rather interesting. The dining hall is fairly compact, all things considered, and so everyone crowds into their tables, pressing close against one another so that they can all fit. A side-effect of this is that every single one of those tables is within easy speaking distance of every single _other_ table – which means that conversation ebbs and flows like the tide, people jumping in and out of whatever discussion happens to have caught their fancy.

Annie hates it. She doesn't particularly like talking, doesn't feel a need for words when actions are so much louder. That, and she can't understand everyone's obsession with other people – and other people's opinions. Though, really, that's half a lie. She knows very well what it's like to look to somebody else for self-validation; the only difference is that at least, in her case, her father is somebody she's known from birth, not some fair-weather friend she's known for a couple of months.

Regardless, the fact remains that conversation has never interested her, and she doesn't understand how even Berthold, even _Reiner_, have gotten caught up in it, happily exchanging a fair bit more than the occasional word with their fellow aspiring officers over things as banal as how well their favourite _sporting teams_ are going. Really, it's stupid, and a waste of their time; they're not here to make friends (and if she forgets the fact she tolerates Mina Carolina far too much for how long she's known her, well, that's beside the point).

Unfortunately, not everyone shares her view of the world.

"Hey, everyone!" Christa's not yelling; yelling is rarely considered cute, and even Annie, cynical as she is, cannot help but view the diminutive girl as anything else. There's just something about her, her bright-eyed, wide-smiling optimism (especially when contrasted with Ymir, her 'old friend' – about the only similarity the two bear is that they're both female), that makes Annie incapable of disliking her. Which doesn't make much sense to her, considering she hates Jaeger for basically the exact same reasons. But then again, he's _Jaeger_.

"Are you finally going to announce our engagement?" Ymir asks, smiling saucily. Christa blushes and slaps her in the side, which does nothing but make the taller woman grin all the wider. Really, you'd think Christa would have learned by now that Ymir lived for her reactions.

"So! We've all been here for a few months – I think it's finally time we got to know one another."

"I wouldn't mind getting to know you, honey."

"YMIR!"

"I think it's a good idea," and of _course_ Bohdt is the first one to agree. "We'll be seeing a lot of each other for the next few years, after all, and probably afterward as well. What's your plan, Christa?"

"Well, why don't we start with everyone sharing why they joined the Academy?"

Annie sighs. _This is going to be a _long _night._ She's half-tempted simply to get up and leave, but that would make her stand out even more than she already does, and there's a difference between being reserved, and being _mysterious_. Right now she's happily cruising along in the former, if the disinterest most of her fellows give her is anything to go by, but that could easily change if she starts looking like she's got something to hide. There is nothing more interesting to other people than a secret they're not privy to.

Plus, she'll admit to being a little interested in some of the answers. For all that she hates him, she's willing to stay simply to hear what Jaeger has to say – he's so stupidly driven that there must be _some_ sort of reason behind it.

"Why'd you join, Eren?" Marco asks. Speak of the devil – it seems she managed to zone out long enough that they've skipped around two tables and finally made it to his.

"To reclaim the Walls."

Briefly, silence. Then Annie speaks, halfway between incredulity and scorn.

"You actually _are_ as stupid as you look, Jaeger."

He turns to Annie, eyes narrowed, as she continues.

"You want to _reclaim the Walls_? That's never going to happen, and certainly not because of _you_."

"Why not?"

"The Titans are too strong," she says, rolling her eyes, "and they're only getting stronger. I know you're a suicidal idiot, but I always figured you were at least trying to make your death mean something. Are you really going to waste it like that?"

"_Waste_ it?" His voice is suddenly cold; so cold Annie can't suppress a shiver. The more time she spends—willingly or not—with Jaeger, the more she realises he is like a diamond; for all that he catches the eye, reflecting the light off a hundred different facets, the fact remains that she doesn't think anyone will ever manage to _break_ him. He stands, thrusting himself out of his chair, and takes a few steps toward her, until he is almost in the centre of the room.

"My mother," and Annie blinks at the sudden change of subject (as does the rest of the room, it seems, though Mikasa and Armin are looking more worried than surprised), "used to volunteer at an orphanage during the day, while my father was at his clinic. The orphanage was called Invictus, and it was located in the Walls. Every so often, she'd come home looking a little worried—a little frightened, even—and Mikasa and I always used to wonder why. Eventually, one night after she came back like that, we snuck out of our rooms when we were supposed to be asleep, and eavesdropped on her and my father when they were talking.

You know what was happening? It turned out that every so often, a member of the Titans would come into the orphanage, and demand that they pay some sort of protection fee - either with money, or with... other services, in my mother's case. Of course, the owner of the orphanage refused. That went on for six months or so—the Titans had only recently expanded to take control of the area, apparently, since my mother had been volunteering there for years up to this point—until the bastards decided enough was enough, and that somebody needed to be taught a lesson."

There is a pause, like the space between lightning and thunder.

"That day, my mother went to Invictus and never came back."

Jaeger slams his palms on the table in front of Annie (when had he gotten so close?) and stares down at her; the ice was gone, now, replaced by a rough, raw fury that almost, _almost_ made her feel guilty simply for existing.

"They shot her as she was crossing the street; three bullets in the chest and two in the stomach. By the time somebody called an ambulance, it was already too late. So excuse me, _Leonhardt_," and that hurts even though it shouldn't, because he's never called a classmate by their surname before, "but I'm _pretty fucking sure_ that I won't be dying for nothing."

He stands up, this time addressing the room as a whole, rage and determination and passion all combining into something distinctly _Jaeger_.

"Until every single one of those Titan bastards is locked up, or dead, and the Walls are ours again, I will not rest unless it's in the grave."

He storms out, and Mikasa follows him, a cold and somber shadow by his side.

* * *

><p><strong>This is the only other fully-complete scene from Icarus, and, as you can probably tell, it takes place a few years before the previous chapter (i.e. the final scene). <strong>

**Figured I might as well post it, since it's done (and since I hit post limit on tumblr reblogging Carmilla posts _seriously guys watch it it's amazing and I think I'm in love with Natasha Negovanlis_). **

**Thanks for reading!**


End file.
